The Next Five Years

THE 2024 LOK Sabha election will go down as historic. It has set three clear trends. First, the era of coalitions is back. Single-party domination no longer dictates Indian politics. Regional parties hold the levers to power.

Second, seat-sharing between national and regional allies across states can bring down a formidable opponent. The Congress-SP alliance in Uttar Pradesh swung the election away from BJP. In Maharashtra, the MVA alliance between Congress, Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena and Sharad Pawar’s NCP was the other big game-changer.

Third, in an aspirational society like India with a young demographic, religion matters less than upward mobility. BJP’s electoral campaign focused more on deity than on development—a mistake for which it is paying the price.

The Congress-led Opposition will tar­get BJP’s NDA allies in an attempt to form a coalition government. It did so with 145 seats in 2004 and 206 seats in 2009. Can it pull off an upset in 2024? Unlikely.

The 2024 General Election under­scored the grip BJP continues to have on the Hindi heartland, except for Rajasthan and Haryana. It swept Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Delhi, Uttarakhand, and Himachal Pradesh. But its attempt to conquer the east met with limited success. It faltered in West Bengal but won Odisha, both in Parliament and the state Assembly.

BJP’s southern thrust remains a work in progress though Andhra and Telangana are bellwethers for the future. With delimitation due in 2026, new constituencies will be drawn, giving the Hindi heartland states greater parliamentary representation. That could spell trouble for Congress and its allies in the 2029 Lok Sabha election.

The next five years of the new coalition government must now focus on five specific areas.

Infrastructure: Upgrading India’s infrastructure was a highlight of Narendra Modi’s second term in 2019-24. Highways were built—at record pace. So were new airports, sea terminals, Metros, bridges, tunnels and houses for the poor.

Technology-driven infrastructure will now take centre­stage. The Gati Shakti Master Plan has not received the attention it merits. The portal allows access to infrastruc­ture and manufacturing industries. They can map exactly which land parcels are free of encumbrances, speeding up new industrial and infrastructure projects. This is an innovation that will play an increasingly important role in India’s economic growth in 2024-29.

Reforms: The Modi government faltered on land, farm and labour reforms in its first two terms. These must now be fixed. The government needs to bite the bullet.

Welfare: Many outstanding welfare benefit schemes have reached maturity over the last 10 years: sanitation, village electrification, water on tap, health insurance, financial inclusion, food security, MUDRA loans and low-cost housing. But much remains to be done in each.

Sanitation is still a work in progress. Toilets in villages are being converted into store rooms, defeating the purpose of Swachh Bharat Abhiyan. Several private hospitals have mean­while dropped out of the Ayushman Bharat health insurance scheme, causing hardship to many vulnerable sections. Each of these welfare schemes needs remedial, timebound action.

Civic management: While infrastructure development at the federal and state level has sped ahead, the quality of civic infrastructure remains a problem. Indore, Surat and Navi Mumbai have created clean cities but the majority of Indian cities, towns and villages lack good civic management. A key reform in 2024-29 should be to appoint elected mayors across India’s cities and towns and hold them accountable to citizens.

Geopolitics: India rose from the world’s 10th largest economy in 2014 to the world’s fifth largest economy in 2024. The task for the next five years is to steer India’s economy past Japan and Germany to emerge as the third largest economy globally.

This outcome will focus the spotlight on India. It will face increasing scrutiny from the world’s established powers used for centuries to controlling the global narrative. The quality of Indian democracy will be questioned. Foreign institutions with poor and opaque methodology will criticise religious and media freedom. India’s neutral position on the Russia-Ukraine war will raise more hackles in Europe as the conflict grinds on.

With elections due in the US in November 2024, India will hold its cards close to its chest. Modi has built a personal rapport with both President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, a key factor as Modi prepares to meet global leaders at the G7 summit in Italy soon.

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